


Take My Baby to the Picture Show

by ehmazing



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Developing Friendships, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Missing Scene, Teen Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 02:53:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14010585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ehmazing/pseuds/ehmazing
Summary: [Spoilers for s2 e11 "Gorizilla"]Two very ordinary teenagers go to a movie in completely average and normal outfits.





	Take My Baby to the Picture Show

**Author's Note:**

> **THIS IS YOUR FINAL SPOILER WARNING!!!!!**

“Okay, what do you think?” Marinette asks, giving the straps one final tug. She strikes a pose—an artful lean, an elbow pop, a bitten-back yelp when she smacks her hand off of the side of the dumpster they’re using for shelter—and waits as he taps a finger against his chin, humming thoughtfully.

“I like the towel turban,” Adrien says. “Very Dorian Leigh at the beach, nice vintage flair. And tinted lenses are _so_ in for spring.”

The goggles slip down Marinette’s nose again, and she frowns as she tightens them once more. “Ugh. I think these are actually my dad’s. I, uh, left the house in a bit of a rush this morning and grabbed the first pair I saw.”

“You don’t say,” Adrien can’t resist chuckling, and only feels a little bad about it. Marinette has already staunchly defended her pajamas with a correct point that loungewear is on trend this year. Truth be told, any curious second glances that have come her way have quickly turned into third glances at the very recognizable model at her side teasing her about it. If Adrien were honest, he’d trade his right arm for the ability to run outside in pajamas and have that be the only thing people notice about him.

“Alright, Mr. Critic, I want to see your look in action,” she declares, crossing her arms. “Do a spin! Impress me!”

“I thought I was supposed to be keeping a low profile,” Adrien sighs, but dutifully tries out a few moves for her. The helmet is going to wreck havoc on his hair later, but it’s an interesting challenge to figure out how it would work in a shoot; he’d have to put all his focus in his eyes, the director would say, really create interest in the angles with such a round object. Marinette is quiet as she watches. He thinks maybe she pulled the goggles too tight this time because her face is getting very red around them.

“So?”

“Yeah, great, super Marc Jacobs 2014, now enough showing off,” she quickly mumbles, making a grab for his elbow. “We’ve got fans to fool!”

Adrien grins as she pulls him through the alley. “If you liked the 2014 show, you would love what Marcelo Burlon did in Florence the next year. I’ll show you a video later.” With longer legs, it doesn’t take him long to match her stride, the tension in her arm drooping as they round the corner side-by-side. Marinette just nods, steadying her turban with one hand, her cheeks still a little pink.

The ticket cashier is only a few years older than they are, and when he sees them approach the counter his bored, half-asleep stare quickly becomes a bewildered, wide-awake gawk. Marinette slaps a wrinkled bunch of euros through the partition and quips, “It’s a dare! Two for the next showing of  _Solitude!”_ before he’s able to get a question out of his slack mouth. Marinette has proven herself an incredibly quick thinker in the last hour. Adrien knew she was creative from her hobbies, of course, and good at taking charge thanks to her tenure as Class President, but he finds himself thoroughly impressed at how easily she fast-talks the cashier into letting them through the employee entrance to avoid any further fake embarrassment from their fake challenge.

“You’re really good at this,” he says as they tip-toe their way past the staff break room and slip through the exit door. The halls are thankfully empty—it’s too sunny of a day for most Parisians to spend the afternoon inside a dark theatre. Marinette shivers a little, her shoulders hunching together in a futile defense against the air conditioning, and Adrien feels guilty again.

“At sneaking into the movies? Well, it’s pretty easy when you’re dressed like two super normal people,” she says, and looks a little startled when he laughs.

“At coming up with genius plans,” he amends, trying to smile wide enough that she’ll be able to see it beneath the helmet. “The next time I need a partner-in-crime, I’ll definitely come to you first!”

Suddenly, as soon as he’s said this Marinette seems to shut down entirely. Her hand falters on the door of their theatre, and Adrien hurriedly leans forward to catch it so that it doesn’t bang against the frame and announce their arrival to the other patrons already inside. Unfortunately, the move also brings him into very close contact with Marinette’s bare shoulder. She’s got a stray patch of freckles that trail from the back of her neck right under the thin strap of her pajama shirt.

Adrien’s vision of where exactly they’re trailing towards is abruptly cut off by his own breath fogging up the visor of his helmet.

Marinette’s hand is still on the door. He can feel her fingers around it, caught up in his mad grab for the handle. He gives her a slight squeeze and she takes in a short breath before surrendering it to him. When the fog fades out, she’s moved very far out of his personal space and her face is redder than ever.

“Uh, your goggles?” Adrien manages to say. “I think they’re cutting off your circulation a little?”

“R-right,” Marinette squawks, and slaps her hands against her cheeks. “Thanks, uh—“

With a start, she straightens up, goggles rent askew and turban almost sent flying. The motion also sends one of those straps off her shoulder entirely. Adrien has a split second to think _Eyes up eyes up eyes up_ before she cries, “I forgot something super important! Go inside and get our seats, I’ll be right back!” and dashes at full speed back down the hall.

He is left blinking and stunned in her wake.

From inside his pocket, Plagg drawls, “Earth to Adrien Agreste: humans do, in fact, have skin underneath their clothes. Not quite a groundbreaking discovery.”

“Shut up,” Adrien hisses back as he yanks the door open and slips into the dark theatre. He can feel his kwami shake against his chest as he snickers.

But though Marinette instructed him to find seats, Adrien finds himself too unsure to move beyond the little hall from the door to the audience steps. Is she someone who prefers to sit in the very center of the middle row for the best view? That's his favorite spot, but he’s never had experience negotiating with a group before. Nino always claims that you get the best sound in the front row. Plagg likes to sit wherever is furthest from anyone else in the theatre so that he can curl up on Adrien’s shoulder to watch. His father—well, he doesn’t think his father has watched a film in years, and if he has, Adrien very much doubts he’d come to a public theatre to do so.

So as he stands and waits for Marinette to return, he mulls over what he does know about her tastes. She likes the color pink and hard rock and any video game that involves a lot of punching. She is virtually unafraid of anything, save her parents when they're angry. She sleeps on her back, which smushes her hair totally flat between the roots of her pigtails in the morning and probably creates some incredible cowlicks. She could close her eyes, spin around, and put together something clever from whatever she would find in front of her.

She’s funny and she doesn’t realize it, or doesn’t try to be. She’s terribly competitive. She’s fiercely kind. She’s got an awful lot of freckles on her shoulders.

She’s right behind him again, and Adrien nearly screams bloody murder when she puts her hand on his back and whispers, _“There you are!”_

“EEAAAAaa—oh, hi, it’s um—“ he shrinks down against the wall, flipping up the visor so he can catch his breath, “—it’s you!”

“Sorry!” Marinette squeaks, sounding as though she’s trying very hard not to laugh at him and failing at it. “Geez, I didn’t know you could jump that high!”

“Fencing is a reflex sport,” Adrien argues. Marinette looks doubly gleeful when his voice cracks and ruins the tough tone he was trying for. “I’ll have you know that I have cat-like reflexes!”

“Well, lucky for you I don’t need to call the fire brigade to pry you down from the ceiling,” she giggles. “Here, don't give me that look: I have compensation.” She hefts up an enormous bucket of popcorn tucked under one of her arms. “I got extra cheese for you since you always have it at lunch.”

Adrien quickly clamps his hand against his shirt pocket to prevent Plagg from ripping through the fabric entirely.

“Wow, you remembered that?” He chuckles nervously. "Here I was hoping I wouldn’t be known as the smelly cheese guy.”

“You’re not smelly! I just, uh, I’m just good at noticing things.” Marinette shrugs, looking aside. “It’s a design thing that I do, kind of? Looking for details about people that stand out.” She bites her lip, her arms sinking with the popcorn between them. “Oh, geez, I sound like a creep, don’t I?”

“No!” Adrien clenches his fist in the fabric of his shirt, only just managing to avoid squishing Plagg. “Marinette, you’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. You pay attention to what makes people happy. I don’t think that’s creepy at all.”

“Oh.” Marinette is staring at him with an expression very similar to the one the cashier wore outside. “I mean, uh, um, oh, uh—“ she clutches the popcorn against her chest, eyes darting up and down his face, “I mean I don’t want to give you a bad impression of me! We’ve only hung out for like an hour and already I’ve pulled you into a public fountain, and lied to get us into this theatre, and oh, god—“ her turban begins slipping again, “—you watched me steal that helmet right off a motorcycle on the street—“

“None of that is very—wait.” Adrien gapes. “You told me you borrowed this?!”

“I was planning on swapping it with some 3D glasses from here, so technically borrowing!” Marinette glances nervously around her as if searching for a hidden camera. “But the point is, you’ve seen me do a lot of weird, dumb, creepy stuff today! I don’t want you to think that I’m like that all the time! Only some of the time!” She deflates a little more. “Okay, maybe a lot of the time. I’m—I’m not selling myself very well, am I.”

“You don’t need to be.” Adrien shrugs. “We’re already friends.”

If Marinette was looking at him in confusion before, she now looks at Adrien as if he grew a second head.

“We are,” he insists, laughing a little when her eyes go even wider. “Marinette, we’ve hung out a lot! You gave me your lucky charm—“ he pats his pants pocket, “—when we trained for that game tournament at your house for a whole week. I was your math tutor all semester last fall. We've hung out during fencing practice, and Class Senate, and that one Jagged Stone concert too. We get falafel with Nino and Alya practically every Wednesday. I’ve even met your grandparents!” He winks at her, smirking. “We’re officially friends and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Marinette stares some more. Then slowly her open mouth softens into a smile, her eyes creasing at the corners. She laughs a little too, hugging the popcorn tight.

“Okay, okay,” she says, still smiling as she turns to walk towards the seats. “But you said it first! No take-backs.”

He follows her down the hall, tucking his chin into his chest and muttering as quietly as possible, _Yes I will spill a bunch of cheese popcorn under the seat on purpose and you can go nuts._ His pocket rustles gleefully in reply. When Marinette reaches the stairs she pauses, surveying the theatre. There are only a few other guests scattered around and plenty of seats to choose from.

“I like to sit in the middle row,” she whispers to him, “in the very center. What about you?”

“That’s my favorite, too,” Adrien whispers back, and the flickering light of the film reel shines in the lenses of her goggles as she grins up at him. She ducks down—Marinette may not be very tall, but the towel turban adds some height—and moves to edge down the aisle. There’s a tiny birthmark right between her shoulder blades, and before he can stop himself Adrien reaches out and taps her there.

She turns around, eyes questioning. Her cheeks are a little pink again; she really should take off those goggles soon or they’re going to leave a mark. A little bit of popcorn butter has left a stain on the hem of her shirt, and maybe he should tell her about it, or maybe he shouldn’t just to save her some embarrassment, or maybe he really should stop looking at her shirt when he has no reason to be. Adrien feels awfully hot inside his helmet and hopes a little desperately that maybe his hair will end up flat enough that the 3D glasses Marinette mentioned will be all the disguise he’ll need for the rest of the afternoon.

Marinette raises her eyebrows. Adrien clears his throat.

“I’m glad,” he says. Of course his voice cracks again. Of course. “I’m glad we’re friends.”

Marinette opens her mouth to say something, but her hand slips and the popcorn bucket takes its chance to escape. Floundering, she barely manages to catch it before she drops the entire thing on the floor. Adrien wishes he could tell her not to worry, Plagg will definitely take care of it. He wishes he could tell her that it’s also nice to have a friend who has the skills to sneak around, because he’s been doing it every night for over a year now and he’s still not very good at it.

He wishes he could tell her that she makes him feel brave. Not the kind of brave he feels when he’s around Ladybug, the kind that helps you fight ten-story monsters and deadly minions and the wrong sides of all the people you love. Marinette makes him feel the normal kind of brave, the kind you have to be to take geography tests you forgot to study for and talk back to your father and wear a dumb disguise in public to escape the phone cameras of strangers. Adrien has to be both these versions of brave more than he’d like, lately. He wishes he could explain that to Marinette too.

He wishes he could tell her _I went to this movie to see my mom because I’m starting to forget her. I have pictures—god knows my father and I have enough pictures—but in pictures she’s so stiff, it’s like she’s frozen forever and my mom was anything but frozen. I’m starting to forget how she moved and how she smelled and how she felt when she hugged me and kissed my hair and how she sounded when she said, ‘I love you.’ I went to this movie alone with a fairy-god-cat who still won’t tell me exactly how many thousands of years old he is but I know he won’t say anything if I see my mom on a fifteen-meter screen and immediately start crying. I know you probably won’t say anything either. You don’t know how grateful I am for that._

“Me too.” Adrien looks up. Marinette’s face is close to becoming a very fashionable fall cranberry. “And hey, whenever you need a partner-in-crime, right?”

She gives him a very exaggerated wink and Adrien can’t help the laugh that bursts out of him. A woman and her date turn to stare at them from the back row.

“Sorry!” he sheepishly calls up to them, gesturing to his and Marinette’s headgear. “Team scavenger hunt! We’re winning!”

He nudges Marinette until she stops giggling long enough to follow him to the middle row, making their way to the center seats. When he looks back over his shoulder he sees that she has more than one popcorn butter stain on her shirt now, but her smile is so bright that he doubts anyone else would ever notice. He pats his shirt pocket again and feels Plagg purr, his whiskers brushing against Adrien’s fingertips. Marinette puts a hand on his shoulder for a moment— _“AUGH oh my god I almost tripped on a candy wrapper and fell to my death!”_ —and he laughs again, reaching back for her in the dark as the opening credits begin to play.

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspiration courtesy of [The Drifters.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRPBCQnMV0M)
> 
> Fashion refs:  
> \- [Dorian Leigh](https://theredlist.com/wiki-2-24-525-528-721-view-1950s-4-profile-dorian-leigh.html) is widely considered one of the world's first supermodels and rocked every possible kind of hat in the 1940s and 1950s.
> 
> \- [Marc by Marc Jacobs' men's ready-to-wear fall 2014 collection](https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2014-menswear/marc-by-marc-jacobs) was allll about motocross+BMX+street athletic styles.
> 
> \- and an actual helmet would not have been out of place at [Marcelo Burlon 2015 men's show.](http://www.pittimmagine.com/en/corporate/fairs/uomo/events/2014/marceloburlon.html)


End file.
